Regular Exercise Can Increase Blood Flow to The Brain

Lately, every week when I try to find interesting articles, I come across an article that looks at the benefits of exercise beyond simple weight loss and fitness. I find these articles intriguing because they go outside the box, if you will, as to why regular exercise is important. Well, this week I found another article, this time from UPI entitled, "Exercise good for the brain".

According to Dr. Judy Cameron -- a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine -- she found that monkeys conditioned to use a treadmill for an hour a day, five days a week, performed mental tasks twice as quickly as a control group of monkeys who simply sat on an unmoving treadmill for the same hour. The exercised monkeys were also more engaged in their tasks and willing to make mistakes.

However, Dr. Cameron found that the control group of monkeys eventually caught up to the exercising monkeys, which might denote that practice might overshadow the cognitive effects of exercise. However, it was shown that exercise did help increase blood flow to the brain, but only while they exercised. If they stopped exercising, however, their blood flow would go back to previous levels.

So what does this all mean? Likely that regular and consistent exercise can help increase blood flow to the brain in humans as well, but it must be done consistently for the benefits to take hold. One has to wonder if the same results would occur in humans, and hopefully one day we'll find out.